Delta Marsh is huge — several miles wide north to south and about 25 miles long at the south shore of Lake Manitoba in Canada. It’s one of the world’s greatest gathering places for migratory waterfowl. In 1982, Delta Marsh was designated as a wetland of international importance under the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Ramsar Convention.
About 2,500 years ago, the Assiniboine River formed a delta at the south end of Lake Manitoba. Wave and ice action on the big lake reworked the delta sediment and formed a lengthy beach ridge creating Delta Marsh. The marsh has lakes, ponds, connecting channels, extensive stands of cattail, Phragmites reeds and bulrush. The open water areas of Delta Marsh offer a smorgasbord of submersed aquatic plant food for many species of waterfowl as they stage there, fueling up before their fall flight south.
Earlier this year, Dave Reese of River Falls made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: A chance for me and friends to hunt at Delta Marsh and stay at the legendary Sports Afield Duck Club. Founded by the late Jimmy Robinson, the lodge has hosted people from all walks of life. Ernest Hemmingway, Robert Stack, Clark Gable, Barron Hilton and British royalty, as well as people from River Falls, have hunted there for the legend as well as the beauty of the marsh and for the sport.
Robinson was a legend himself. A short fireplug of a guy, a cigar-chomping, fast-talking storyteller, he was an avid hunter, shooter, fisherman and a bundle of energy. Born in Minnesota in 1897, his family moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Jimmy grew up to love hunting at Delta Marsh and became an excellent shot.
Jimmy served in World War I, played semi-professional baseball, managed the Grand National Trap Shooting tournaments in Vandalia, Ohio, and became an editor for Sports Afield magazine. Jimmy wrote 14 books about shooting and hunting. He was named to five halls of fame: Trapshooting, Fishing, Skeet, the Minnesota Hall of Fame and the Waterfowl Hall of Fame.
Robinson founded his first lodge at Delta Marsh in 1935. The present lodge in the village of St. Ambroise, Manitoba, was built in 1958. Jimmy passed away in 1986. Dick and Judy Wallin of River Falls had hunted with Robinson for many years and bought the lodge.
My friends Dennis Anderson of River Falls, Randy Devendorf of Hudson, Walt Herschey of Hastings, Minn., Bob Anfang of St. Paul, Keith LeClaire of Lino Lakes, Minn., and I met in Manitoba on Sept. 23, the day before the start of waterfowl hunting for nonresidents. We were greeted at the Sports Afield Duck Club by Reese and Judy Wallin, who operate the camp.
The lodge is a very comfortable live-in museum of a place. Dick Wallin framed hundreds of Jimmy Robinson’s photos of friends and celebrities and covered walls with them. Racks of old decoys, duck calls, and taxidermy of many game bird species give the lodge a real-McCoy hunting ambience.
We were up the next morning at 4 a.m., ate breakfast and met the guides. Our guides were Dave Richardson, John Ducharme, Nick Lavallee and his father Bill. They are Metis — French-Cree people whose families have lived in the area since the 1600s.
Lavallee is a fourth-generation guide at the Sports Afield Duck Club. They really know the marsh and the ways of waterfowl. They transported us to the marsh by truck. Hunting partners and guides ventured into the marsh in hand-made heavy wooden duck boats propelled by oars. No motors are allowed in the marsh. We set decoys in the dark and settled into blinds in the reeds to watch the sunrise.
Birds started flying just before 7 a.m. We watched as squadrons of redheads, teal, canvasbacks, bluebills, pintails and mallards came zooming through. Some of them would fly straight into the decoys. Other would circle and check it out as we called to them.
We got lots of chances and bagged plenty of ducks and Canada geese. Big “V” formations of white pelicans flew right over us. Bitterns, gulls, yellowlegs and terns glided by knowing that they are protected species. We listened to coyotes howling in the marsh in the middle of the morning. My old golden retriever Badger did a great job retrieving ducks and geese that we shot. He was fascinated by coots swimming through the decoys.
After picking up the decoys about noon we went back to the lodge for lunch, a nap, trapshooting, or walking around the local prairie. In a beautiful tall-grass prairie and aspen parkland east of the lodge, we saw sharp-tail grouse, woodcock and I bagged a ruffed grouse.
The last day was the best for me. Three of us, LeClaire, Devendorf and I, hunted with Lavallee and set up on a point in the dark with the wind at our backs. Reese came along as a spotter and for moral support. In a series of flurries of action, we got a mixed bag of canvasbacks, redheads, mallards, pintail, a widgeon and cackling geese (a small subspecies of Canada geese).
That evening, Judy Wallin served us a feast of ducks, ruffed grouse, wild rice and fresh vegetables from the local Hutterite community. We toasted to a great hunt and good friends. Reese entertained us with stories of hunts on Delta Marsh.

We drove the long flat way across the prairie back to River Falls. We declared the birds that we brought back at the border. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent remarked that the people at the Sports Afield Duck Camp had done an excellent job of plucking, cleaning and packing our ducks and geese.
For me, that was a memorable hunting experience — one of a lifetime. Delta Marsh is big, beautiful and full of life. Friends from River Falls hosted us and treated us like kings. We got to hunt with guides who really know what they are doing. Best of all, I took a week off of work and got to joke around and hunt in a legendary place with some of my best friends

http://www.riverfallsjournal.com/articles/index.cfm?id=84485&section=Outdoors